Chapter 7: The Voice in the Darkness
I spun around, swinging the flashlight toward the voice.
A shadow moved beside the study door.
“Who's there?”” I demanded.
The emergency lights flickered on, bathing the room in a dim red glow. Evelyn stood beside the desk, one hand pressed against her mouth. Marcus was near the fireplace, and Caleb had positioned himself between Catherine and the window.
But the person behind me was gone.
Caleb rushed to the door and yanked the handle.
Locked.
“Everyone stay where you are,” he ordered.
Marcus grabbed a brass candlestick from the desk.
“Someone is in my house, and you're telling me to stand still?””
“Your house?”” I snapped.
“You might want to reconsider that phrase.””
He glared at me, but before he could respond, Caleb forced the door open with his shoulder.
The hallway was empty.
A cold draft moved through the mansion. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Caleb raised his flashlight.
“Someone knows the layout of this house.””
Evelyn shook her head.
“No. No one could have entered without setting off the alarms.””
Catherine gave a bitter laugh.
“You still believe your security system protects you?””
She pointed toward the wall.
A small black device had been attached beneath the study's telephone. Its red indicator blinked steadily.
Caleb pulled it free.
“Signal jammer,” he said.
“It interrupted the security cameras and the recording system.””
Marcus stared at the device.
“Who has access to equipment like that?””
“Anyone with money and the right connections,” Caleb replied.
I looked down at the recorder still sitting on the desk.
Thomas's voice had stopped just before naming the person he feared.
“Can you recover the rest of the recording?””
Caleb examined the device.
“Perhaps. But I don't want to play it again until I know whether someone has tampered with it.””
I picked up the envelope.
“Then we read what he wrote.””
The handwritten confession had one more paragraph beneath the sentence about my mother's death.
Margaret discovered that money intended for our daughter was being diverted. She confronted the person responsible. Within days, she was gone. I believed I could repair the damage quietly, but my silence allowed the danger to grow.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“Money intended for me?””
Catherine nodded slowly.
“Your mother never wanted Thomas's money for herself. She wanted him to acknowledge you and provide for your future. When she discovered the trust had been manipulated, she threatened to expose whoever was responsible.””
“Who manipulated it?””
Catherine looked toward Evelyn.
“I don't know. Margaret never told me the name. She only said the person had been trusted by Thomas for years.””
Marcus paced the room.
“This is insane. My father had affairs, secrets, hidden accounts, and an illegitimate daughter? And nobody thought to tell me?””
I turned toward him.
“You brought your mistress into our home and demanded that I sign away everything I owned. You don't get to act betrayed because your family has secrets.””
He looked away.
For once, he had no clever answer.
Caleb slipped the recorder into a protective case.
“We need to leave this house.””
“Why?”” I asked.
“Because whoever disabled the security system may still be inside. And because the person who arranged tonight's attack knows we found the compartment.””
Evelyn shook her head.
“We can't leave. The original estate documents are here.””
“Where?””
She hesitated.
“Thomas kept some of his private papers in the basement archive.””
Caleb's expression darkened.
“You knew about the archive?””
“Of course I knew about it. I lived here for thirty years.””
“Then why didn't you tell us?””
“Because Thomas made me promise never to enter it unless something happened to him.””
I stared at her.
“Something happened to him eleven years ago.””
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“I know.””
Her voice was so quiet that I almost missed it.
Marcus stepped toward her.
“Mom, what else are you hiding?””
She looked at him with an expression that made my stomach twist.
“I'm hiding the fact that your father begged me to protect you from your brother.””
Marcus went still.
“Daniel?””
Evelyn nodded.
“He believed Daniel had become dangerous. He told me that if anything happened to him, I must never allow Daniel to gain unrestricted access to the family trust.””
“Then why did Daniel end up controlling the company?””
“Because Thomas was dead, Richard Cole controlled the legal documents, and I was too frightened to challenge either of them.””
Caleb studied her.
“Frightened of Daniel?””
Evelyn looked at the photograph of Thomas and Margaret.
“Frightened of what he would reveal about me.””
Silence filled the study.
I wanted to ask what she meant, but a noise from the basement interrupted us.
A heavy metallic bang.
Then another.
Caleb immediately moved toward the stairs.
“Stay here.””
I followed him.
He turned sharply.
“Sarah, I mean it.””
“So do I. That archive may contain the truth about my mother. I'm not waiting in another room while someone else decides what I can know.””
He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded.
We descended together.
The basement smelled of damp stone and old paper. Caleb swept his flashlight across shelves of labeled boxes, filing cabinets, and a large steel door at the far end.
The door stood slightly open.
“That wasn't open before,” Evelyn whispered behind us.
Caleb drew a small flashlight from his pocket and approached.
Inside the archive, several drawers had been pulled out. Documents lay scattered across the floor, and a filing cabinet had been forced open.
Someone had been searching.
I spotted a photograph beneath a broken folder.
My mother stood beside a young man whose face I recognized from the family portraits.
Thomas.
But someone had written a name across the back in red ink.
*The father of Sarah's child was never the real target.*
I stared at the words.
“What does that mean?””
Caleb took the photograph from me.
Before he could answer, Marcus shouted from the stairs.
“Sarah! You need to see this!””
We hurried back upstairs.
Marcus was holding a document he'd found beneath the study desk. It bore the official seal of the Whitmore family trust.
At the bottom, beside a list of beneficiaries, was my name.
But the line beside it had been crossed out.
Someone had written a different name over mine.
Daniel Whitmore.
May you like
And beneath his name, in Thomas's handwriting, were four words that changed everything.
*Beneficiary removed for murder.*
